


Playing With Fire

by chasindsackmead



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, some Canon Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 16:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6618436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasindsackmead/pseuds/chasindsackmead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I see you enjoy playing with fire, Inquisitor.”</p>
<p>Trevelyan lets out a low, gentle chuckle. “How do you <i>think</i> I lost my eyebrows?” he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing With Fire

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason when I made my second Inquisitor, none of the eyebrow options really worked with the face I’d given him. So I went with the “no eyebrows” look, which (combined with the slight ruddiness on his cheeks) gave a special significance to a certain line in the Dorian romance...

This is such a terrible idea. Everything in him is screaming _stop_ , except the part that made him flee Tevinter -- the part that he never listens to until the last possible moment. Dorian’s heart is pounding and he feels achingly exposed, as if he were standing naked before a dragon’s open mouth. Trevelyan’s hands are on his waist, his face leaning in and

_oh_

their lips touch and there it is, the dragon’s breath: he is aflame, Trevelyan has set him aflame, and he has never been so happy to burn. 

The kiss lasts a second and a lifetime, and when it’s over, he says the only thing he can say:

“I see you enjoy playing with fire, Inquisitor.”

Trevelyan lets out a low, gentle chuckle. “How do you _think_ I lost my eyebrows?” he says. 

It startles a laugh out of Dorian. “I rather assumed it was a fashion statement.”

“What, you think I pluck them every morning? We share a tent on missions, Dorian. I think you would have noticed my lack of tweezers.”

“I’m told removing the hairs with melted beeswax can have a more lasting effect. I don’t speak from personal experience. It always sounded like rather too much trouble to me.”

Trevelyan chuckles again and reaches up to stroke Dorian’s moustache with his thumb; the tiny motion sets off sparks underneath Dorian’s skin. “This from a man who spends half an hour alone with a grooming kit every morning, rain or shine.”

“Well, one must have _some_ standards.” His fingers touch the red flush over Trevelyan’s cheekbones; it’s such a fixture that Dorian had taken it for sunburn, but now that he’s close enough to see it clearly, he’s less sure. “Does this come from the same incident?”

There is a separate flush spreading underneath the burn -- a slightly different shade of pink, behaving in a slightly different way. “As a matter of fact, it does.” Trevelyan’s voice is breathy and light. “I-I was fourteen and rather overconfident, and I’d just got to the stage of needing to shave regularly -- “

Dorian groans and knocks Trevelyan’s forehead with his own. “Oh, you _didn’t_!”

Trevelyan laughs -- Maker, will he ever grow tired of hearing that laugh? -- and shakes his head. “Alas, I did. I was so _convinced_ that I had enough fine control of the fire to burn away just the hairs I wanted burned away and none of the others. It even worked, the first time. The second time, though...” 

His laugh fades, and he looks down and away, a slightly sad expression on his face that Dorian has come to recognise. That is his “Circle nostalgia” face, or (when Dorian is feeling less charitable towards the South) his “fond memories of the mages’ prison” face. 

Predictably, he looks up a moment later wearing a slightly-too-bright smile. “The _second_ time,” he goes on, “I got distracted halfway through the casting, and what was supposed to be a very low-powered, controlled burn turned into a veritable fireball. My instructors weren’t sure whether to congratulate me for casting a spell that should have been beyond my capabilities, or clap me in irons for taking a stupid risk. In the end they decided not to punish me, but to let the burns heal naturally. I can hear them now... ‘It’s the only way he’ll learn!’“

His impersonation of a crusty old senior enchanter is uncannily like some of the crankier instructors at the Vyrantium Circle, and Dorian is startled into laughter again. “I’m glad it didn’t put you off elemental magic for good,” he says, stroking Trevelyan’s cheekbones with the pads of his fingertips; the flush is spreading down towards his neck now, and it is quite the most beautiful thing Dorian has ever seen. “Your veritable fireballs are rather handy when we run into despair demons. Which happens more often than I would prefer.”

Trevelyan’s smile softens into something genuine. He covers Dorian’s hands with his own, slides them towards his mouth and kisses them, and Dorian’s heart throbs painfully. “It may have cost me my eyebrows,” says Trevelyan, lowering both their hands, “but it certainly taught me a healthy respect for fire.”

“Did it?” -- no, stop, leave it there, don’t spoil it _don’t spoil it_ \-- “You’re dancing perilously close to the flames. I’d hate to see you get properly burned.”

He’s said it now, damn his own hide. Couldn’t resist it after all; couldn’t be selfish and let Trevelyan walk blind into -- into whatever this is, or is going to be. It will end, he is sure, when Trevelyan either tires of him or realises how much damage their closeness has done to his reputation, and the sooner it ends the sooner he can crawl into a corner to lick his wounds. Now would be good. If Trevelyan ends it now, he can cherish the thought of that kiss, and it will be -- well, no, it won’t be enough. It could never be enough. But it will be more than the _nothing_ he had expected to gain.

But Trevelyan just smiles and kisses him again, and Dorian’s mind goes blissfully quiet until Trevelyan breaks the kiss and says “Have you ever known me to run _away_ from danger?”

Dorian laughs. “True, you’re more inclined to run headlong into it while yelling a battle cry.”

“And usually you’re right there beside me.” Trevelyan's smile fades. “I know what I’m doing, Dorian.” 

“I’m glad one of us does.” And then, because there is such a thing as too much honesty, he pastes on a smile that glitters like the buckles on his boots, and takes a step backwards. “At any rate, time to drink myself into a stupor. It’s been that sort of day. Join me some time, if you’ve a mind.”

Maker bless him, Trevelyan knows an exit cue when he hears one. He inclines his head, murmurs “Another time,” and makes his way to the staircase that leads to the rookery. 

Dorian walks backwards into his chair and sits down heavily, those words dancing across his mind over and over again. 

_I know what I’m doing, Dorian_.

“Good for you,” Dorian mutters to himself. “I do hope you let me in on the plot one day.”

_~fin~_


End file.
